Mother Vine

CASE STUDY

About

Founded in 2015 by hospitality dream team; Michael Andrewartha, Pablo Theodoros, Frank Hannon-Tan and David LeMire, Mother Vine has recently been acclaimed ‘Best Wine Bar in South Australia’.

Problem

Opening a brand new wine bar, Frank took the opportunity for a fresh start and stepped away from his legacy POS system.

Previously, Frank had invested in a legacy POS system that required a large upfront investment. As the business changed and grew, the ongoing management of the legacy POS became increasingly costly and time consuming. “It was something we didn’t have control over because the staff couldn’t make any changes to the menu or back-end without calling in a technician to get the system to do what you needed it to do.”

Furthermore, the legacy POS system offered very limited transparency with regards to reporting. Frank found it difficult to keep on top of where the business was from month to month, and had to spend time in the back office calculating and planning his cash flow to ensure he was fully in control of the finances. “Going into business with three other people meant that each person had to be able to easily see a snapshot of the business from anywhere at any time. We knew a legacy system would never have been able to offer this.”

Solution

Frank chose Kounta as his POS platform and integrated it with Deputy and Xero to manage his staff rostering and accounting.

Frank also bought 3 iPads, two cash drawers and two docket printers to manage the service. “Orders are taken at the tables or over the bar and processed with Kounta. Wines are poured as soon as the order is made but we have two docket printers, one for cocktail orders and one for food orders. Kounta processes the order and the cocktails and food orders are printed in the appropriate place. It’s a simple but effective setup.”

“Kounta ticked all the boxes operationally, stock control, ease of programming, ease of installation, easy integrations and an affordable price structure. But the thing that really tipped the scales for us was the transparency”.

When Frank is not at Mother Vine, he logs in to see how service is going on a particular day, to track and compare where sales are over a particular time period, and also, with the accountingintegration, to know whether there will be enough money to invest back into the business after BAS payments and other outgoings are processed.

Results

When the wine list or food menu changes, or an event or special offer takes place, any staff member can update the POS quickly to reflect these changes. “We don’t have to spend money getting technicians to program the system for us, we did it all ourselves and continue to do so on an ongoing basis. This means we now have an in-depth understanding of the way our system works and any of our staff can update it easily at any time.”

From a reporting perspective, Frank has gained valuable insights that have helped move the business forwards. “All of the partners can access up to date financial reports at anytime from anywhere, which saves us all a lot of time wasted in the back office. The ability for the business partners to see what is going on at anytime, on their smartphones has been invaluable; being able to observe sales, look at what is selling and generally pull up any data at any time from the cloud has been fantastic.”

“It has changed the way that I looked at business, it's really quite incredible. We have a lot more financial control and when you do an end of month analysis you are looking at figures almost in real time instead of from 6 weeks ago. This means you know exactly how much you owe, how much has come in and the balance. I basically know in an instant whether I can afford to buy the new blankets and glasses we want without being short on funds when our BAS comes around.”

“I would highly recommend Kounta, it is an evolving product and it was clear from the start that even better things were to come. Kounta has saved us time and money in so many areas, it works really well and is so customised that it speeds up service, transactions are fast and we sell more in peak times.”

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